More water doesn't mean cheaper water

At one point Ballarat's major catchment, White Swan Reservoir got down to 7.4 per cent of its capacity.

The 14 billion litre reservoir is now around 97 per cent full.

Ballarat's total water supply system is sitting at around 85 per cent capacity.

Central Highlands Water started developing its five year water pricing plan in 2006, during one of the worst droughts the state has ever seen.

While the drought has now been declared over, CHW communications manager Wendy Stubbs says there won't be any flexibility around the water pricing structure until mid-2013.

She says existing tariffs reflect $400 million of investments in projects across the five years.

"We had to look at a significant program of investment to secure water supplies across our region, not just in Ballarat but across the entire Central Highlands region.

"That means investments in projects like the goldfields superpipe, ground-water projects like Ballarat West bore and a number of other ground-water resources that we undertook for Maryborough and other systems where there was just not sufficient quantities in reservoirs."

Local Coalition candidates have been calling for water usage to make up a higher proportion of water bills, without bills increasing for low-volume consumers.

But low-consumption customers won't see pricing reductions any time soon.

"There is a fixed fee for the actual delivery of water and sewer services to our customers, and then there's a variable charge for usage of water and there's a three tier approach to pricing which does have a pricing impact on the higher volume use," Ms Stubbs says.

"That pricing pathway is already predetermined until the end of June 2013."

Ms Stubbs says catchments are looking good as a result of record rains, consumers adopting more sustainable habits and water security project investments.

"With the rainfall we've had this year, we've seen a recovery of most of reservoirs including Lal Lal which supplies about 20 per cent of Ballarat now."

The Essential Services Commission released its annual water performance report on Tuesday, revealing Ballarat households paid the second highest average urban household bills during 2009-2010 across the state.

The average bill was $951 for Central Highlands Water customers (up eight per cent from the previous year), $941 for Grampians Wimmera Mallee Water and $830 for Wannon compared to $597 for customers of City West Water which gets its supply from Melbourne Water.

"When we approve water prices, we base it on the costs that the water authority is facing both in terms of upgrades of their works, growth as well as the operating and maintenance costs.

"You'll find that it does vary and be no surprise that for example some of the city authorities are cheaper... obviously that's a function of having more people packed into a tighter density so that it's cheaper to service those people."